Video Killed The Rock Star

Why were the Smashing Pumpkins and some of their '90s cohorts able to achieve a level of commercial success unknown to the alt-rock bands today? Sure, you have your boy bands and gangsta rappers, your Justin Timberlakes and your 50 Cents. But the recent Coachella festival outside Los Angeles featured the best of today's indie rock--think Bright Eyes and The Rapture. What, never heard of them? NEWSWEEK's Bret Begun talked with former Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan about his era of rock--and what's different today. Excerpts:

NEWSWEEK: If you survey the alt-rock landscape these days, there is a kingdom of good bands, but no king. Why?

Billy Corgan: You've had an erosion of mystique. You have to be on the cover of Maxim. Michelle Branch was on the cover of FHM. It's a constant series of compromises that takes away from the very essence of what it means to be an iconoclast. They just sign 40 guys who are better looking than Kurt Cobain and sing just like Kurt Cobain. But what you lose is the spiritual essence of the individual who seems to come from out of nowhere. All the great icons of rock have been incredibly insane individuals.

Is it impossible for a great icon to come along again?

What we're going to see now is a different archetype rise up. It's not going to be the Elvis archetype; it's going to be something we can't even imagine. It's going to be someone, maybe, who's more spiritual, somebody who doesn't want anything to do with corporate industry. Somebody who's an Internet star. Some kid who makes tapes in his bedroom and says, "F---the world. This is my version of it." And then people will latch on. All the music factories in the world can't manufacture that kid. To me, Elvis was the innovator. We've basically just been watering down Elvis. We've lost the desire to support individuals. In the early '90s, you had six or seven top people--Courtney [Love], Trent Reznor, Soundgarden, Alice in Chains. We all got assassinated because we didn't live up to some sort of idealism that never existed: a perfectionism of rock and roll attitude mixed with drug addiction. So what replaced us? Kids who looked the part, acted the part, but they weren't saying the same things. They've been successful, so why would the next generation go back to what we used to do?

Why be original, in other words?